


Keepsakes

by occasional_boy_reporter



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Secret Relationship, do D2 players know Cayde is an artist?, post Forsaken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 16:42:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15644790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/occasional_boy_reporter/pseuds/occasional_boy_reporter
Summary: Zavala mourns Cayde until he receives an unconventional reminder of their time together.





	Keepsakes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kinginthenarrowsea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinginthenarrowsea/gifts).



> The lovely person above asked for some mourning Zavala with a hint of sweet sex.

   Cayde and Zavala’s relationship never existed on paper. There was no workplace fraternization policy signed with their names, no official requisition for the larger bed, no certificate of partnership. No next of kin forms.

   But it was very real. As real as the sleep lost and appetite diminished, as real as the dull ache that has Zavala rubbing his chest whenever things are too quiet. It seems things will always be too quiet now that Cayde is gone. With Cayde’s murderer taken care of and the Exo’s body interred in the vault below the Tower, there’s no burning need for vengeance or stress of funerary details- nothing left to distract Zavala. Just the quiet and the pain and life moving on.

   The Tower bounces back from the loss like it always does. Ikora insists the black cloths draped from walls and rails be removed promptly at the end of the second week. Objectively, it’s what Cayde probably would have wanted- to be celebrated but not pitied or made a cautionary tale. Now, wistful exchanges of stories and the trinkets left by a post in the hanger serve as the few reminders of who’s missing. It’s business as usual, just days after Zavala finally finds it in him to remove Cayde from the roster, when a knock at the door interrupts the Vanguard meeting taking place.

   Ikora allows the newcomer inside and Zavala’s breath sticks in his chest at the blank, white mask that turns in his direction. Embroidered feathers frame a deep hood and bloom in the shape of a pale owl across the chest. Zavala knows this Guardian well but only by notoriety of their profession. The Steward has always served an important role by being the official recorder of lost Guardians. They also collect the physical belongings of Guardians, missing or deceased, and sort them appropriately into assets that can be reused and those that cannot. Knowing the Steward must have come from Cayde’s rooms twists Zavala’s stomach. A lifetime of objects that carried no more than sentimental value to the Exo will be gone now. Zavala doesn’t know what he’d have done with the items, if he had a legal right to them, but it feels wrong that they should so coldy cease to exist.

   The Steward approaches and Zavala swallows.

   _‘Let him tell Ikora the deed is done,’_ he thinks bitterly.

   Polished porcelain, so reminiscent of the Speaker’s mask, dips as the Steward considers the fist carefully balled at Zavala’s thigh. Or maybe they are noting that Zavala continues to wear his grief in the black sash tied to his mark.

   “Well?” Zavala snaps when the silence aches and his heart begins to thunder.

   A white gloved-hand reaches into the folds of a white robe and produces a large, white envelope with the seal of an owl embossed into the heavy paper.

   Zavala can only stare, confused, while a small part of him forms a pulse-pounding distaste for the color white.

   “Open it privately,” the Steward advises, edges of their words crumbling with infrequent use.

   Fingers stiff with shock and uncertainty, Zavala takes the envelope. Ikora leads the Steward outside without a word but shuts the door firmly with the Commander alone on the other side. Zavala waits. She does not return. It takes another minute or so before he can coax his fingers into action.

   It cannot be something left to him by Cayde. The Hunter had no will despite Zavala bullying him toward such a precaution in the wake of the Red War. But maybe a letter written just in case, something tucked into one of the journals he was always writing in, a note jotted down before departure, something…anything…

   Zavala rips the lip of the envelop in his haste. He frees a collection of loose paper but, instead of words, he discovers art. It’s instantly obvious why this collection was delivered and thank the Traveler that the Steward operates with strict confidentiality.

   Because every sketch features Zavala.

   Mostly naked.

   That itself is not much of a surprise. He posed for these, after all. But he honestly never thought he’d see them again. Each sketch is a fleeting moment of time, evenings spent in the privacy of their rooms- Zavala always a bit confused why Cayde would want yet another stretch, another pose, when surely he already had reference for all the applicable parts. The pages in Zavala’s hands are…well…muscles mostly. Chiefly, anatomy studies. Pages upon pages of biceps and triceps and pectorals, an entire sheet of disembodied legs flexed at different angles. That one had been a rather tedious evening of shifting and waiting while precariously balanced. Zavala’s lips twitch at the absurdity of the memory.

   Then there are the images that are less likely to be interpreted as mere studies. No doubt these are what convinced the Steward of Zavala’s…participation…and what saw the contents of this envelope delivered rather than burned along with the rest of the Exo’s sentimental possessions. Some of the larger, more polished pieces are certainly riske, but always erring on the side of tasteful with a conveniently placed drape of cloth or a leg posed just right.

  _“Like in those super ancient societies,”_ Cayde once explained, _“naked, buff guys are fine art!”_

   Zavala never was convinced but Cayde was dedicated to his assertion. As Zavala shuffles through the stack he confirms none of it is overtly sexual. That’s not what these studies had been about. Well, not always what they were about. Most evenings were about genuine practice. Other times, practice was sometimes the original intent but soon forgotten. He comes to a sketch of his bare back. Graphite mimics the cut of his shoulders with heavy, shadowed lines. He remembers this evening with startling clarity. It isn’t one of Cayde’s older pieces, miraculously rescued from the shell of the old Tower. This is the new Tower, post Red War, only a few months old.

_Cayde sits curled in Zavala’s armchair, a bundle of soft, gray clothing, with a new sketchbook braced against his knees. “Take it off, Zavala.”_

_Zavala huffs, unimpressed gaze pinning the Hunter who had taken his gift and, immediately after, Zavala’s favorite chair._

_“You wouldn’t have given it to me if you didn’t want me to use it, right?” Cayde pats the book of untouched pages. “So take off your shirt and let me fill this puppy up!”_

_He had, in fact, not considered the implication of his welcome home gift. He had only thought about how it might make the Hunter happy to have a replacement when they’d failed to scavenge more than a few volumes of Cayde’s older works. But if it makes Cayde happy…Zavala tugs off his own simple shirt. Cayde whistles despite having seen the man naked a thousand times and Zavala refuses to let that color his ears._

_“How would you have me?”_

_It is Cayde’s turn to blush, throat light warming, as he pretends to stare at his page. He selects a pencil from the table beside him and fiddles with it. “Uhh, you wanna turn around and I’ll do your back?”_

_Zavala complies and only allows the fragment of a smirk when he’s sure the Exo cannot see it._

_They have always been strangely intimate- these artistic sessions. Even before they had eased into a proper relationship, when Cayde was only coaxing a reluctant and bewildered Zavala to pose as a favor friend-to-friend, there had been a certain vulnerability that was less about being stripped of armor and clothing and more about allowing himself to drift- to simple be- without any expectations of leadership. Which is exactly the state of zen Zavala has fallen into when he is startled by a hand tracing the curve of his neck._

_Zavala twists to meet Cayde with an amused laugh. “Bored already?”_

_“Ya know, sometimes art is meant to be experienced, not captured.”_

_Their kisses are gentle, at first, while Cayde kneads blue shoulders. Then fiercer, desperate when the Exo rakes down both sides of the Awoken’s spine and grabs hips tight enough to make Zavala shudder._

_They wind up on the bed with Zavala’s face denting the mattress as mechanical fingers glide deep and sure and slick. When fingers are replaced and Cayde slides home, Zavala groans into his sheets and reaches back to wrap his hands over Cayde’s as they squeeze and dig into the small of his back in the most delicious way. More than usual, more than just the reaction to Cayde unraveling him from the inside, Zavala squirms and bows until the Exo growls in the back of his throat and grips the juncture of neck and shoulder. Cayde pins him between hand and cock, traces every shift and flex of muscle, and drives into the Awoken until Zavala sees stars._

   Zavala smiles ruefully. The unfinished nature of the sketch is blaringly obvious compared to the others in the stack. Especially when he compares it to what he knows is the very next in the series- himself, lying on his side, head pillowed against his arm, the faintest bits of bruising shadowed in along the stretch of his back, everything drawn in great detail while he slept.

   Here he has it. Proof on paper that he and Cayde were something far more than colleagues, more than friends. He pages through the stack once more. He imagines he can see Cayde in the lines: his impatience as well as his focus, his appreciation for the simplest and the most complicated of things, and in the lines of Zavala’s back, Cayde’s infinite care for the ones he loved. Zavala gently tucks the papers back into their envelope. He’ll lock them away, keep them the secret they’ve always been. After all, it’s not the paper that is important. It’s the memories of Cayde that are most precious.

 


End file.
